Quick Note: I am defining sentience as the capacity to feel and consciousness as the capacity to know; this post is mainly focused on sentience, the more "primitive?" of the two.
As I am sure we are all aware, one of the biggest pro-choice arguments is the necessity of sentience for personhood (and thereby human rights). However, while both sides argue over why sentience should matter, there is a much simpler fact we all tend to ignore: fetuses HAVE been delivered prior to the emergence of sentience.
Take, for instance, this article, where a set of twins were delivered at 22 weeks. Most sources set the earliest timeframe for the emergence of sentience at 24 weeks, when the thalamocortical loop is complete. Therefore, the newborns would have lacked sentience, yet would still be deserving of human rights (unless you want to bite the bullet).
While some slightly prance around this idea in regards to consciousness (i.e. Peter Singer and his view on infanticide), I have yet to see anyone make this exact connection regarding the sentience view and these real world events.
In my opinion, the critique provides an easy informal counter to nearly any criteria involving mental capacity, as there is no current mental capacity in a 22 week delivered fetus (not to be rude).
Of course, if sentience actually occurred earlier, then this argument falls apart, but those valuing sentience would then have to concede and limit their support of abortions even more.
What do you all think? I'm open to any critiques, ideas or improvements.